Religious Diversity and Intercultural Education: Depicting Pupils' Views throughout Greece

Greece is one European country which during the last twenty years is
characterised as a recpetion, multicultural country. As a result of this new situation,
the multicultural diversity has been reflected upon its educational system revealing
new educational needs and challenging the existing national school practices and
measures, school's lessons, textbooks and curricula.
As far as the lesson of Religion in the Greek educational system is concerned,
until very recently, this was a compulsory one. For first time, this academic year, this
lesson became an optional one. One of the reasons for this change, amongst others,
was that since almost all Greek classes are multicultural ones, this new situation calls
the mono-centric religious orientation (i.e. Christian Orthodox) to broaden its
spectrum and include also the teaching of other religions.
In many countries worldwide, religion plays an important role in public life.
As far as Greece is concerned, it has always been a key element in public and social
life, also in the educational system. Until now religious education in Greece is a
compulsory module taught in a confessional and catechist way, while Orthodoxy
saturates school culture, making the Greek educational system intolerant towards
pupils of different religious backgrounds (Efstathiou et al. 2008).
Intercultural Education and diversity consist a new challenge and fundamental
aspect of all societies that respects differences between individuals and differences
between groups. The existence of multiple identities, values, cultures and faiths within
a society challenges individuals and groups to cultivate mutual understanding in order
to engage in cooperative interaction and experience cultural enrichment. Without
mutual understanding, differences may generate conflicts that, when managed with
violence, lead to considerable violations of fundamental human rights. Intercultural
Education, encompassing the themes of inclusion and participation and the motto of
"learning to live together" provides a means of handling the challenges posed by
multiculturalism in a context that promotes democratic standards for conflict
resolution (Villano Qiriazi, CoE-Strasbourg 2007).